Bug Encyclopedia
Search and identify bugs & insects — beetles, butterflies, moths, ants, bees, spiders and more — with size, habitat, danger, behavior, and how to tell them apart.
Leafhopper
A small, wedge-shaped insect that darts sideways and springs away in quick hops when disturbed, often brightly striped or patterned and found clinging to the underside of leaves.
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Mayfly Nymph
A short-lived aquatic grazer with feathery gills along its abdomen, living for months underwater before a brief, spectacular mass emergence as a winged adult.
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Common Wood-Nymph
A large brown grassland butterfly with a bold yellow patch and one or two prominent black eyespots on the forewing, known for its bouncing, low-to-the-ground flight.
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Stonefly Nymph
A flattened, armored aquatic nymph that clings tightly to rocks in swift, cold streams, serving as one of the most reliable signs of pristine water quality.
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Dragonfly Nymph
A stocky, camouflaged underwater predator that spends months or years stalking prey along the pond bottom before transforming into an aerial dragonfly.
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Damselfly Nymph
A slender aquatic predator with three feathery tail gills, patiently stalking small prey among pond plants before emerging as a delicate flying damselfly.
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Fishfly Larva
A flattened, armor-plated predator of stream bottoms, the fishfly larva spends one to three years underwater seizing prey with sickle-shaped jaws before briefly taking wing as a short-lived winged adult.
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Mourning Cloak
A dark, velvety maroon-brown butterfly edged with a ragged cream-yellow border and a row of iridescent blue spots, notable for overwintering as an adult and often being one of the very first butterflies seen flying in early spring.
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Mourning Cloak Caterpillar
A gregarious, velvety black caterpillar speckled with white dots and a striking row of brick-red spots down its back, often seen feeding in clusters on willow branches.
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Mourning Cloak Butterfly
A deep maroon-brown butterfly bordered with a cream-yellow band and a row of iridescent blue spots, unusual among butterflies for overwintering as an adult and being one of the first to appear in early spring.
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Stonefly
A flattened, drab-winged insect whose nymphs are among the most reliable living indicators of pristine, well-oxygenated stream water.
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Bordered Plant Bug
A dark, oval-bodied true bug with a distinct pale margin around its wing edges, often mistaken for a large ant or beetle when its nymphs cluster together in tight groups.
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Meadow Spittlebug
A small, mottled hopping true bug whose immature nymphs are far more often noticed than the adults, hidden inside frothy blobs of white foam known as cuckoo spit on plant stems.
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Ant-mimicking Mantis
As a tiny nymph, this mantis moves in quick, jerky bursts to imitate a scurrying ant, a clever disguise it gradually sheds as it grows into a typical-looking adult mantis.
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Spittlebug
A small hopping true bug best known in its nymph stage, which surrounds itself in a frothy mass of white foam on plant stems, commonly called cuckoo spit.
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Broad-Headed Bug
A slender, dark true bug with a notably wide head, whose nymphs are remarkable ant mimics that scurry among leaf litter before maturing into fliers that resemble small leaf-footed bugs.
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Ant
A small eusocial insect that lives in highly organized colonies, instantly recognizable by its narrow pinched waist, elbowed antennae, and single-file foraging trails.
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Aphid
A tiny, soft-bodied, pear-shaped insect that clusters in dense colonies on plant stems and leaf undersides, feeding on sap through needle-like mouthparts and often coated in sweet honeydew.
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Army Ant
A nomadic predator that never builds a permanent nest, instead forming temporary living bivouacs from its own linked bodies and sweeping through the forest floor in massive predatory raids.
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Fire Ant
A small reddish-brown ant that builds loose, crater-less dirt mounds in sunny open turf and mobilizes large numbers of workers rapidly when the nest is disturbed.
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House Ant
A small, dark brown to black ant that forages in loose trails along countertops and baseboards and releases a distinctive rotten-coconut smell when crushed.
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Sugar Ant
A common name for several large, sugar-loving ants, most famously the black-and-orange banded sugar ant of Australia, known for its persistent nighttime foraging around kitchens and picnics.
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Crazy Ant
A fast-moving, long-legged ant instantly recognizable by its erratic, non-stop scurrying in every direction rather than the orderly trails followed by most other ants.
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Antlion
An insect best known for its larval stage, the doodlebug, which digs a small conical pit trap in loose sand to ambush unwary ants, while the winged adult resembles a slender, delicate damselfly.
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